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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25875154">Out Alone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honorable_mention/pseuds/Honorable_mention'>Honorable_mention</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Drug Use, Gen, Good Sibling Vanya Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, M/M, Mental Health Issues, No Incest, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Schizophrenia, Suicide, Vietnam War, klaus causes the apocalypse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:07:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,840</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25875154</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honorable_mention/pseuds/Honorable_mention</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Klaus Hargreeves had always seen things that weren’t there. At times it felt like a taunt: your siblings get superpowers and all you get to be is schizophrenic.</p><p>In which Klaus grows up believing he doesn’t have powers</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ben Hargreeves &amp; Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves &amp; Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves &amp; Vanya Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>728</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Finished faves</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Reject the Nest, Reject the Title</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Klaus wasn’t ordinary. He was extraordinary in his own way.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Sure his siblings had superpowers. But what had that gotten them. Diego dressed up in leather and beat people up while trying to impress their robot mom. Luther had run off somewhere to ruminate on his daddy issues. Vanya could make stuff blow up but instead liked to play her violin.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It had been hard when they were kids, sure. Watching his father dote on his siblings while he stayed in the shadows. But the shadows were where Klaus belonged. His natural environment.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Because while he siblings got superpowers, all Klaus got was fucked-up brain chemistry. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He wasn’t sure when he’d seen the ghosts for the first time. Mom told him that they weren’t real, just hallucinations his brain had created, but they seemed so present. Rotting flesh, broken necks, the fruity smell of decay. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>At first he’d tried to ignore them but that didn’t help. Reginald had still thought his disappointment of a son might have had superpowers, so he left him alone with the thoughts in his head.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span> That was a dangerous place to be.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He still remembered the first time he’d managed to quiet the voices in his head. A warm Autumn day, late in the season. Leaves crackled beneath his feet as he and Diego slipped out the second story window.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They’d been doing it for years by this point, sometimes just the two of them, sometimes more of the siblings. Diego had wanted to find a copy of some depressing mouse Holocaust book, so Klaus loitered in the alley out back waiting for his brother. He lit a cigarette he’d found in Pogo’s room and leaned on the slimey stones.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He blew out a puff of smoke and watched the people rush past on the street. Somewhere a voice was calling his name, there was a tickle of eyes on his neck, a hunched figure that may or may not have been real.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>A man came up beside him. He seemed young, maybe college aged, just past. Slicked-back hair, dark, and an endearing smile. Klaus took a final drag and crushed the cigarette beneath his shoe. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They talked for a minute as the man lit his own cigarette. He worked at the restaurant at the other end of the alley and was just taking a smoke break. His boss would kill him if he wasn’t back soon, but did Klaus want to come over to his house that night? He and a couple friends were having a party, he’d love for Klaus to come.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He handed Klaus a slip of paper with his address scribbled on it. The cigarette hung loose to his lip, ash dripping to the ground.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Wait, you are legal, right?” The man asked with a wink as he began to walk away.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course, man.” That wasn’t true, but no one needed to know that. In the corner of his vision one of his hallucinations was telling him this was a bad idea. She, it, was a little old lady who always got on Klaus’s nerves.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Shut up,” he mumbled as Diego waved Klaus down as he left the store. Mom said he shouldn’t interact with them, the visions, but she couldn’t do anything to control his actions. It was his life.</span>
</p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before that night Klaus had never left the mansion alone. He’d always gone with at least one of his siblings, so this felt monumental. He would finally have an identity outside of being the failure of the Umbrella Academy. That had to mean something.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The man’s apartment was drab and cheap. Wallpaper peeled in the corners and the only couch in the apartment looked like it had been dragged away from a pack of feral cats. Smelled like it too. Klaus was in love.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There were only five or six people there, lounging in various states against the walls and the edges of the couch. The man, who Klaus came to know as Judas (a name the man had given himself as a member of a local punk band), was sprawled across the couch.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He handed Klaus a joint, the end still wet from where his lips had met it. Klaus took a long drag, let the beginnings of a high creep up on his brain. It was nice. Quiet.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The hallucinations all around him, the man with the caved-in head and the woman with tears in her eyes and raw fingertips, began to fade away. They were still there, they were always there, but they were at least quieter. Less broken. Less bruised.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Damn, you sure you’ve never smoked a blunt before?” Judas asked. Klaus shrugged as the man on the couch motioned next to him. “Here, sit down.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus did as he was told. He and Judas were pressed together on the little couch, their thighs together and the smell of cheap beer on Judas’s breath.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“God I need a drink,” Klaus muttered as he handed back the joint.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t we all. I’ll go grab some beers. You care what they are?” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“No, whatever’s fine. As long as it gets me absolutely hammered.” Klaus sang the last words.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Judas smiled and got up, nudging one of the other guests with his toe, the joint dangling precariously from between his fingers. “That’s what I like to hear.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He sat back down on the couch and handed Klaus the beer. It was cold in his hand, the beads of icy water that rolled down the side almost too cold to handle.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>That night, sometime in Judas’s bed when everyone else had cleared out, Klaus finally found himself. He wasn’t sure what it was, the sex or the booze or the pot, but finally Klaus was free. No babbling old ladies only he could see, no passing breaths on his neck, nothing crawling on his arms.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He stayed at Judas’s house for a week. Eventually he stumbled back to the mansion, eyes red and smile wide. Reginald sighed when he saw him and told him to take a shower. Dinner was in half an hour. Klaus was almost offended there was less outrage about his absence, but only almost.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>After Judas Klaus moved to harder things. He built up a tolerance. More, he needed more, or else he’d have to start dealing with his problems again. The ones Mom told him to forget and Reginald scoffed at. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t even realize how big of a problem it was until his first overdose. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Ben has found him on the floor, vomit on his chin and snot dripping over his lips. They’d diagnosed him with schizoaffective disorder, told him he could be manic, he could be depressed, he definitely saw things that weren’t there. Heard voices, felt the phantom touches of fingers and maggots. It seemed a fair diagnosis, all things considered. Though now they told him he was just schizophrenic.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Getting a diagnosis didn’t change much in Klaus’s life. He was still the same druggy sibling his siblings knew and tolerated, the same disappointment his father had been expecting for years. Still, it was almost the final straw for him staying at the Academy.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Of course the real final blow was Ben’s death. And Klaus’s subsequent belief that he could see his dead brother. No matter what they did to his medication and no matter what medicating Klaus did for himself Ben wouldn’t go away. He insisted that he was real but Klaus knew he wasn’t. His mind had been bad to him before but this was so much worse. This was cruel.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus left only a month after Ben died. He heard that Diego and Allison and Vanya left soon afterwards. Five was already gone by that point. It must have been so depressing to be stuck in that awful house with dad, but Klaus was sure Luther was loving it. He’d always gotten off on paternal approval.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And then Vanya has written her tell-all book. Which, like, unfair. If Klaus had the motivation he could have written a much better story, the tale of the useful Hargreeves. But at least Vanya’s years of abuse were entertaining. And she was already a public figure.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Sometimes the guys at Narcotics Anonymous or one of the many rehab centers Diego had plopped him down in would remember the book. They’d all laugh about it and ask Klaus if he was really as crazy as the book made him out to be. Make him three times more fashionable and his sister and pretty much nailed him down perfectly. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Not that he minded. It would be nice to be taken seriously but at least he had fun. The same couldn’t be said of his siblings in all their perpetual misery.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He yawned and stretched, rolled out of bed and collected his belongings. The stiff mattress he’d been staying on during the duration of his stay at the rehab center wasn’t doing much for his back. Still, he’d been to worse places. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Simon!” Klaus said as he saw the front-desk clerk. He liked to think they’d become friends as Klaus cycled in and out of the facility every few months. Simon likely wouldn’t agree but that was his problem, not Klaus’s.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Here you go, Klaus. I’ll see you soon.” He handed Klaus his belongings and a token proclaiming his sobriety. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The night air whistled through his hair as he walked along the street. Ben was whispering something about philosophy or whatever Klaus’s subconscious had dreamed up that day.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Suddenly a news broadcast caught his attention. It was playing through a little old set in the window of an electronics shop. A special bulletin, straight from the mouth of a woman with very flattering lipstick.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Reginald Hargreeves, philanthropist and leader of the Umbrella Academy, was dead.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. I’ve Lost Direction</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The hallway was solemn and musty when Klaus walked through the doors. Dust floated through the air and settled on the oil paintings and animal skulls that covered the walls. For a place he hadn’t been to in years, the old mansion really was exactly how Klaus remembered it. Same sounds, same smells, the same ghostly presence of the Academy looming over him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>On the note of things staying the same Klaus’s brother made his way down the stairs. Diego looked similar to how he’d looked when they were kids, if a bit taller. Though maybe Klaus was only misremembering Diego’s ratio of anger to height. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Diego!” He ran over to his brother, hugged him over the thick layer of leather, knives, and knife-adjacent items. “The bastard’s finally dead! It’s cause for celebration, isn’t it?” He pretended to ring a little bell.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s good to see you too Klaus. Nice to know you haven’t changed a bit since I last saw you.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“For your information I’ve gotten much sexier.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Diego shook his head and sighed. “Keep telling yourself that.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Love you too!” Klaus called as he made his way up the stairs to his old bedroom.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It was just as messy as the day he’d left it, papers strewn from one corner to the next. It looked like no one had touched it in fifteen years. They probably hadn’t. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He rooted through the back of one of his drawers. If no one had been in here then no one had found his drug stash. Jackpot.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>After a minute of digging he found the little baggie of white powder he knew he’d left in there.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He dipped his pinky in, rubbed it against his gums. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You really shouldn’t do that,” Ben, or Klaus’s hallucination of Ben, said from the bed. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Not real,” Klaus sang. His gums buzzed and his heart raced.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Even if I’m just your mind, shouldn’t you be concerned that I’m telling you to lay off the substances? Take it as some kind of sign?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Not real.” He rubbed a bit more of the coke on his gum, let the numbing tingle wash over him. “I’m not a prisoner, I’m a free man.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t quote Iron Maiden to me Klaus. I was the one who liked them.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“No, Ben liked them. You’re just my mind, and we were going through that weird Industrial phase back then.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you like this because, and I’ll say it again, you’re not real.” The sheets were thrown off the bed as he searched for the pills he knew he’d sown into his mattress.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you know how lonely it gets as a ghost? No one to talk to?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Not listening,” Klaus said as he finally found the stitch in the mattress to tear apart. He made a note to take an early inheritance from Reginald’s office later so he could refill his stash. The old man wouldn’t notice.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you know how awful it was to find out that you had powers Klaus? That dad was hiding them from you the whole time?” Ben shook his head. “I felt so bad about the way I’d treated you.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus stopped what he was doing. He knew it was bad to let this go on so long when dad had created those pills to deal with this exact problem, but he’d liked seeing his brother. Even if it wasn’t the real Ben, just a cheap copy. It was better than nothing. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But now the paranoia was back.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He fished through his pockets until he found his pills. The orange bottle shook in his hand as he twisted the lid off.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t need to do this,” Ben said, walking towards him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Not real,” Klaus said as he threw two in his mouth at once. Ben winced and, when Klaus looked up again from rooting through his room, his brother was gone. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>A soft knock sounded at his door.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Who were you talking to?” Vanya asked, walking over to his torn-apart bed.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, no one. You know how it is.” He vaguely gestured at the air.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you, you know,” she mumbled.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m fine. Promise.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay. In that case Luther’s calling us all down for a family meeting. I thought you would want to come.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“A member of the Umbrella Academy? Inviting me down to their meeting?” He feigned surprise and his sister swatted his arm with a smile.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I said it was family business.” They sat there a moment, neither particularly wanting to join whatever chaos was unfolding downstairs. Finally Vanya broke the silence. “It’s good to see you again.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I missed you, definitely more than the others. I heard some of your music on the radio one time. It sounded great.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Aw, thanks Klaus.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“And I read your book.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The color drained from her face. “I’m sorry, I know it wasn’t my place.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“No, it was great! You really nailed me down perfectly.” Her shoulders relaxed and he could see the color begin to return to her cheeks. “Diego’s pissy about it though, right?” Klaus asked.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Vanya nodded.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Put him in a room with Luther and he’ll forget about it. You should know that, you had to go on missions with them. Like half of each of their sections in your book was just how much they hate each other.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You sure it’ll be fine?” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, between the,” he mimed snorting a line, “and the,” he mimed shooting something up, “I did watch you guys. I know a thing or two about this family.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Then, in that case, we should go down and make sure they don’t kill each other, right?” Vanya asked with a smile.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Gotta make sure we don’t have to bury either of them. Seems like a lot of upper body work, and you know I’m terrible about working out.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“But if it was one of them it’d probably be Diego,” Vanya murmured. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Definitely. We’d have to bury him next to Reginald. He’d hate that.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“He really would.” She stood up from the bed and gestured to Klaus. “We really should go. Come on.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Ah, to be back with this family,” Klaus said with a sigh.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hey guys! I hope y’all are liking reading this. It’s been really interesting to write, and I’m looking forward to continuing it!</p>
<p>My computer broke today so I had to write this on my phone, so I’d like to apologize for any formatting</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. I’m On the Brink</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It was a wonder Diego and Luther had never successfully murdered each other before. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They currently stood at odds with each other in the living room. Luther was sure that dear deceased pops had been murdered, the implication being that Diego had done the murdering, while Diego found this accusation wild and unfounded.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Klaus wished they would get around to beating each other up already. No point in dragging this whole affair out. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m not even surprised,” Ben muttered from where he’d perched on the arm of a dusty old sofa. “They didn’t even make it to dad’s funeral.” He shook his head and sighed, the books on the shelf behind him barely visible through his blue-tinted skin. Klaus tried to pinpoint the moment he had reappeared but couldn’t find it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What did you expect?” The words slipped out before he could stuff them away. God, he needed to stop doing this. His hallucination of Ben was too persistent as it was.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Huh?” Luther asked, turning away from his confrontation with Diego.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I obviously wasn’t talking to you Luther.” Ben shook his head, disappointed with Klaus’s choice of words. That hadn’t been the right thing to say, not by a long shot.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Then who was it?” Diego looked at Klaus as he spoke and Klaus tried to shy away from his brother’s gaze. Of everyone in the family Diego had the greatest right to be suspicious. He had been the last person to find Klaus off his meds.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It had been one of those transitional days in September when the air blew cold as a knife and yet the sun still slammed into your back if you wore too much black. Klaus hadn’t taken his meds in six days.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The air around him was teeming with ghosts. Young, old, bruised, bloody, they all mixed together into one teeming creature. They clawed at Klaus’s chest and begged for mercy, forgiveness, help.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sounds hit his ears when he least expected them, whispers and cries of his name over and over again. Bugs nipped his skin and he scratched to get them off. He left long bloody streaks up and down his limbs, some half-scabbed and some still pink and raw. Everyone was out to get him, he wasn’t safe anywhere, he needed to hide from the rest of the living world. Only the ghosts told the truth. They couldn’t risk a lie. At one point Klaus was sure he had levitated off the ground.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He needed food. Had he eaten in the last few days? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Diego’s door was easy to get open and he began to tear his brother’s apartment to pieces in search of something to sustain him. It had to have a layer of protection on it, a peel or a shell or some kind of plastic wrap. The ghosts might not lie but they still might try to poison him. Make him join their ranks.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After that his memory got foggy. He’d woken up in a hospital bed with Diego hovering over him, his brother’s eyes sunken and his hair in disarray. Klaus reached out to him and his brother seemed scared to touch his hand. Like he was a butterfly with a half broken wing or a hypodermic needle in the sand of the beach.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So Diego had a right to worry. But it was just Ben Klaus was talking to.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It was no one, Diego, remember? I’m the crazy one in the family.” He pulled a bag of pills out of his pocket and scarfed one down.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you really high right now? On the day of dad’s funeral?” Luther asked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“This is my medication, I’m supposed to take it,” Klaus said. “Isn’t that what you want?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Diego looked relieved. “Yeah, of course.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Just kidding! These,” Klaus held out the baggie, “are a hundred percent recreational.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Allison pinched the bridge of her nose and walked to the center of the room. “While this has been entertaining all around, we’ve got to get going if we want to get the ceremony over before dark.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They all headed out into the courtyard, Reginald’s pretentious urn in Luther’s hands. It was drizzling, a light rain that smattered against the umbrellas they carried and smelled like Autumn. Each of the Academy members got a somber black umbrella while Klaus was left with a less appropriate but much more fun clear and pink one. Very fitting.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Luther dumped their father’s ashes to the ground. They fell in a heap. Not even the wind dared to disturb their father.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Pogo asked if anyone would like to say a few words. When no one did he gave a little speech about loyalty and duty or something. Klaus didn’t actually listen. He was too busy trying to light his joint without it getting blown out by the wind that picked up only after dad was in a pile on the muddy dirt.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>With Pogo done speaking Diego took the floor. “I’m going to say what we were all thinking: Reginald wasn’t a good man and he wasn’t a good father.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Klaus snorted. “You’re telling me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Like you would know anything about him,” Luther said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Exactly! He couldn’t have given less of a shit about me.” Klaus took a long drag and let the smoke rise into the air.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It wasn’t Klaus’s fault he didn’t have powers,” Diego said, squaring his chest in front of Luther the way straight men always did when they were trying to intimidate each other. “And you can’t say anything about dad. You were the only one he ever cared about.” He poked their brother's frankly gargantuan chest.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And finally, after a few more heated exchanges, Luther and Diego were fighting. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In one hit they sent Ben’s memorial statue tumbling to the ground.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ouch,” Ben said as he watched his head detach from his body and roll away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Didn’t look like you anyway,” Klaus mumbled. He hoped he was quiet enough, had enough of his mouth covered by the hand holding his joint that no one would notice. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re right. Totally wasn’t flattering.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Klaus wondered idly if he could talk to Ben by just thinking what he wanted to say. In theory he should be able to, considering Ben was just another part of his brain. Another part of that same traitorous organ promised that wasn’t how it worked. He was too scared to test it out, not sure whether he even wanted to be able to speak to Ben without talking. Didn’t know what truths he was able to stomach.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Academy managed to filter back into the mansion, Luther and Diego both blaming each other for the destruction of Ben’s statue.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Klaus stayed outside after his siblings. He knelt down next to what used to be his father and put out his joint in what he liked to imagine was Reginald’s nose, maybe his kneecap.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Best funeral ever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Later, after everyone had gone off to their separate parts of the house (though Luther was the only one who mourned), Klaus saw a blue light. It built in intensity, slow at first then cresting and crashing through the windows of the mansion. He’d never seen anything like it before.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Stumbling he made his way into the courtyard. The rest of his siblings were already there.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You can see that too, right?” He asked Vanya. “You can see the light?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” she whispered. Awe covered her face.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He had the urge to heave something towards the light which he slowly realized was a portal of some kind. He had never seen anything like it before, at least not in the last decade and a half. Before he could find any suitably throwing objects a pair of hands began to come through the portal.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A scream and a body fell through with the hands and Five was lying on the floor. Five, the last missing Hargreeves. Five, the presumed dead member of the Umbrella Academy. Five, who still looked thirteen.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So you can see him too?” Klaus asked Vanya.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I can.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Then, if I may, holy shit.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I hope y’all like this chapter! And I hope y’all have an awesome day!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. All Safe and Sound</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>According to Five the world was going to end in a couple of days. Klaus couldn’t actually remember when the date was, but it was definitely close. Not more than two weeks away, that was for sure.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>So the Apocalypse. Possibly the most on-brand news Five could have brought back with him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>At first Klaus didn’t know how to take it. How exactly is one supposed to take the news that they’ll be dead within a fortnight?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus could have asked Five if he made a handsome corpse, lying dead in the remains of the world, but then decided against it for three reasons. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Firstly, of course he would make a handsome corpse. Had you seen him? Practically an Adonis.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Secondly, Five probably had some trauma in the sibling corpse field and that little ball of energy did not need any extra help on his way to a psychotic break. Of course it would be fun not to be the only one, but Klaus didn’t think his family could handle two of them. They couldn’t even handle Klaus on his own. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Thirdly, if Klaus’s hallucinations were anything to go by, handsome and corpse were nearly mutually exclusive words.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>If hallucination Ben could read his thoughts he’d probably have something to say about that last point.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But he didn’t say anything. Another tally towards the no mind reading camp. Instead all Ben did was complain about the drugs.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“For the last time, Ben, you’re not real and I don’t need to talk to you.” He took the baggie and handed his dealer something gold and shiny he’d found in Reginald’s office. Jonah had known Klaus long enough to be used to him talking to the air. “Also, because you’re not real, there’s nothing you can do to stop me from taking these.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He popped one of the pills in his mouth and waved to Jonah as he walked away, leaving his dealer to prod the shiny trinket. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“There are better ways to deal with your problems, Klaus. Dad’s dead, I’m sure there’s enough money for you to get a therapist.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Been there, done that. This,” he chewed a second pill, “is much more effective. And more fun!” He swallowed the chewed-up remains of the pill. “And what was I supposed to do? Wait for the Apocalypse?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You could go help the Academy fight whatever it is. You’re a part of the family.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus laughed. “Fat Chance that’s ever going to happen. Them? Letting me help?” He pretended to put his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “You clearly weren’t there for our childhood.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“But you have powers Klaus.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus stopped in the alley behind the mansion. “Stop. Ben, please. It’s bad enough you’re here, the way you are, that my brain’s convinced me to have full conversations with you. I’d really like to go back to the mansion and take a shower and get really high, and I can’t do that as effectively if I also have to take my meds.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Once again I think this is a bad idea. The drugs.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s better. I can justify you being here as the angel on my shoulder.” Klaus slipped in through the back door, crept up the old servant’s staircase that had been abandoned long before he moved in, and walked into his old bathroom.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Back when they were kids he used to claim it for hours. Normally the Academy kids would push him around to get what they wanted, but somehow it was understood that Klaus’s bath time was a sacred thing. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The bathtub knob creaked as Klaus turned it. The first splashes of water began to dribble out of the faucet, picking up speed until they were splashing just outside of the edge of the tub. Exactly the way Klaus remembered it and exactly the way he needed it to be.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He played with the temperature until the water racing over his hand was the perfect temperature, just below scalding with steam rising into the air.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He settled into the tub and fit his headphones on. Closed his eyes, swallowed a pill, lit a joint. Let everything lap around him like the water on his chest.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Between the water and the music and the drugs Klaus couldn’t hear much. Certainly no gunshots, no struggle, no crashing or clanging or banging. Nothing shattered, nothing broken, nothing changed. Everything exactly the same as it had always been and would remain in this god forsaken relic of a house.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>When the water became tepid he stepped out, the cold air hitting his skin for a moment before he could grab his towel and wrap it around himself.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He dried his hair, wiped his makeup off his face, let the music keep playing. It was only one notch below painfully loud. All in all a successful bath. No need to think about the Apocalypse. If he was going to die he wanted to spend his last days doing what he loved: bathing, drinking, smoking, floating.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus did a little dance to the music as he walked back to his room at the end of the hall. As far from the Academy as possible, though it had been quiet. Ben always complained that he should have gotten the quiet room, what with Klaus and Diego always sneaking off at night.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus smiled at the memory.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And then there were leather-clothed hands around his mouth, grasping onto his chest. He kicked and struggled to get away but it was no use. He tried to scream but the hand only tightened over his face.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He was dragged out of the building through the back exit he’d come through only hours earlier. Duct tape was plastered on his mouth and he was shoved in the trunk of a car. Wrists bound by uncomfortable rope he smashed his head against the trunk of the car. Screamed as much as he could. Blood pooled where he hit his head but he kept it up. Someone had to hear him. His family would come for him, realize he was gone any minute now. They’d know what to do.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But they didn’t come for him. Whoever had taken him kept him in that trunk for what felt like hours but could have been minutes. His throat was dry, his wrists chafed, the drying blood on his forehead sticky and stiff.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Sun burned his eyes when the trunk was finally lifted. Two people stood over him, both hulking figures from their place above him. One of them, the shorter one, had a bright pink cartoon dog head on over her suit while the other one, stocky and angular, had a blue and yellow creature of unknown classification.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The pink one tore the tape off his mouth. “Hargreeves, tell us everything you know about your brother Five.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>For a moment Klaus was surprised. But then he wasn’t. Of course Five would be trailed by diet Little League Mascots. Why not?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And it wasn't like Klaus was about to rat out his brother, not when Five had finally come back from the dead.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Plus, dear old pops had spent plenty of time teaching his kids how to handle themselves in an interrogation. Klaus might as well put those skills to use. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, are you those guys from Chuck-E-Cheese’s?”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The next chapter was going to be in this one but it got long and I like short chapters (and also liked the end of this chapter...)</p>
<p>Anyway, classes started today at my school and my linear algebra TA is my new favorite person. He got distracted during our session and emailed everyone a pierogi recipe</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Medium Sized Heart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Klaus hated pain. At times he swore that he didn’t, that in fact he revelled in the burn and the scratch and the itch of a wound. But that was just a front. A way to make himself feel better. A distraction.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>When he was a kid he remembered his dad doing everything in his power to unlock Klaus’s abilities. Burning him, soaking him in ice water, locking him up alone to try to see what he would do. If he would do anything. Of course he never did, but silly inconveniences like that never stopped Reginald. Klaus couldn’t remember how old he was when it happened, the memories locked behind the foggy wall of time and trauma. But those memories, that chasing pain, stuck with him his entire life.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus thought about that old pain as the pink woman put out a cigarette on his arm. He could smell his own singed hair and feel the pain rushing deep through his veins. It licked at his heart and beat through his fingernails.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>According to the snippets of conversation he could pick out the woman’s name was Cha-Cha. She was, if Klaus’s experience was any indication, a complete psychopath.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, not cool man,” Klaus said. “I liked that arm without burn scars.” He tried to stifle the pain, keep it away from his voice and face. Calm, cool, collected. Just like if he were a part of the Academy.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll stop when you tell us where your brother is.” Cha-Cha ground the last of the cigarette into his arm before throwing it into a nearby ashtray.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ll have to be more specific. I have a couple brothers.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Well we want Five,” the blue man, who Klaus had gathered to be Hazel, said.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh. In that case I have no idea where he is.” Klaus tried to shrug but his hands were held down by the duct tape on his wrists.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t lie to us,” Cha-Cha said, holding up some kind of machine. “We still have ways of making you talk.” The machine lit up, sparks flying across the room.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I really don’t know where he is! Of anyone you could have kidnapped I’m definitely the worst. I don’t even have powers. They don’t tell me anything, I swear. I’m the most useless member of the family.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Ben told him, resting his hand on his brother’s shoulder. Klaus could have sworn he felt the cold hand against his flesh. He needed his meds, needed drugs or alcohol before this got out of hand.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m always hard on myself Ben. It’s my brand.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Who’re you talking to?” Hazel asked, moving towards Klaus. Cha-Cha lit up the electrical machine again.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Just my hallucinated dead brother. Don’t worry about it, happens all the time.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Not a hallucination,” Ben whispered.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Not right now Ben.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m just letting you know that I’m real and I’m here for you. You’re not alone.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Just shut up! I don’t need this right now!” Klaus yelled. Ben looked guilty for a moment and Klaus almost wanted to comfort his brother. But he couldn't, because Ben had died a long time ago. What he saw in front of him wasn’t his brother.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t talk to us like that,” Cha-Cha said. The machine crackled with life an inch above his chest.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry! It was my hallucination brother again. I’m sure you know how it is.” Klaus grinned up at his captors, tried to ignore the bruises and aches across his body.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The two suit-wearing sadists looked at each other. “Fine. But this is your last chance to answer our questions before we have to resort to,” she said as the machine clicked and whirred, “more extreme measures. So, for the last time, where’s your brother?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know. I already told you that. He showed up at our house a couple days ago and I really haven’t seen him much since then. We weren’t close, I promise, I’m sure he wanted to catch up with the Academy first.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Cha-Cha slammed the machine into his chest, the pain racing through his bones, resting behind his eyelids before shooting back to his toes. She looked at him. “I’m really sad you made me do this to you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was truly a miracle that Klaus hadn’t revealed more by now. Granted he didn’t know much to begin with, but he hadn’t begun to divulge the idiosyncrasies of his siblings yet. That was really all he could offer, and he was guarding that knowledge against Hazel and Cha-Cha’s completely unrelated assaults. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dad would be so proud.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Really, more than the pain, his hallucinations were starting to get on his nerves. And that wasn’t to say the pain wasn’t bad. It was. It ached and crushed and swept him under the weight of it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But a little old Russian lady who went by the name Zoya Popova was currently mumbling in the corner of the room, and he really needed her to be quiet. Aside from the burns and cuts and rashes he didn’t need a headache.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Zoya, please be quiet,” he mumbled. She looked at him from her place beside the nineties wood paneling and half-stained table, her forehead caved in and her fingers bloody. The rags around her were dirty and cracked with dried blood, and he imagined she looked surprised to have him talking to her. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I told you to stop talking,” Cha-Cha said, pulling the ropes around his neck tighter.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Usually I’d find this hot, but there’s this old woman who won’t be quiet and it’s really ruining the mood.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Hazel and Cha-Cha said something to each other but Zoya drowned them out. She moved closer to Klaus, her Russian more and more frantic. Louder, more twisted, more desperate. He could only pick out a few words, wishing that he’d paid closer attention to Grace’s language lessons when they were kids. Of course he must have paid a certain amount of attention to come up with whatever she was saying. The rest must have been nonsense. Or maybe it was all nonsense and he just told himself it was Russian.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His hallucinations were getting weirder, not to mention more specific, less tethered to his life. This one was saying something about assassins, a birthday party, revenge.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Well, it was worth a shot. At this point he didn’t have much to lose. “You two wouldn’t happen to know a Zoya Popova, would you? Old, Russian, I think you killed her at her birthday party.” Zoya mumbled a line of disagreement. “Sorry, you took her from her grandson’s birthday party and then murdered her.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Hazel paled and dragged his partner into the bathroom of the crappy motel room Klaus was being kept in.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Well that was weird,” Klaus said to Ben. He didn’t have anyone else to talk to. Might as well talk to himself.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“No. It was amazing. Can’t you see now that you have powers?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus didn’t reply because at that moment his mind began to create dozens of people. Ghosts, nearly. All bloody, all bashed, all bruised. Wearing the clothes of a dozen eras and a dozen countries.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Guessing about Zoya Popova was lucky. He’d probably overheard Hazel and Cha-Cha discussing her.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But if the assassins recognized these other people, then Klaus might be even worse off than he had expected. Maybe Hazel and Cha-Cha weren’t real, maybe this was all an elaborate post-bath dream.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Hazel crept towards Klaus. “How did you know about Zoya Popova?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Lucky guess.” Zoya glared at him. “And she’s standing over there in the corner. She says hi, and also to go fuck yourself. But I promise it’s more colorful in Russian.” The old woman nodded her appreciation.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I thought you didn’t have powers.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Lucky guess then.” The other ghosts, the other hallucinations he corrected himself, got closer to him. They each shouted for his attention. He might as well give his mind the honor of airing it’s inventions to the world. “Do you recognize someone named Esther Brannon? You shot her out behind the dumpsters of her high school before the Homecoming Dance.” He sighed. “She even had a date with Johnny Cooper, and he was practically the cutest boy in the school. According to her he had a very nice jawline.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“How did you know about Esther?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Another lucky guess,” Klaus said. Because in all honesty he had no idea how he’d managed to guess another one. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But if it stopped that horrible pain then he wasn't going to question it.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The chapter title’s a reference to Mr. November by the National, but it’s also a pun. I’m way too proud of myself for that.</p>
<p>Anyway, I hope y’all like it! :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Too Late for This</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Klaus’s life was weird as shit. How many guys born in the eighties could say they’d fought in Vietnam?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The answer, Klaus was fairly certain, was one. Though he wouldn’t put it past Five.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But that’s where Klaus was: Vietnam, 1968. The A Shau Valley to be precise, according to Dave with the gorgeous face and perfect body.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>One minute Klaus had been tied up in a chair in that ratty motel room. The whole world had been out of balance as his kidnappers feared him, but at least it was a familiar era. And then Diego’s girlfriend had shown up, but she was dead now. He’d watched her bleed out, lying there on that shag carpeting. Or she was dead in 2019. Here, in 1968, she hadn’t even been born yet.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d taken the opportunity of her death to grab a thick black briefcase from the vent he’d crawled through and run as far away as he could. His feet had bled, glass digging into his heels and the rough asphalt assaulting the soles of his feet. But he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t think about what had happened, any second of it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ben sat next to him as he jumped onto a bus, catching it mere seconds before it left. The fluorescent lights burned his eyes and he could feel the itch of withdrawal in his veins. He slouched down in a vain attempt to stay unrecognizable from the outside of the bus.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A middle aged lady of large portions sat across from him. Her hair was bottle red, the colors of her outfit complimentary. They nodded at each other as Klaus opened the briefcase.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He needed money, he needed to drink to forget, he needed to float away. Out of his body and it’s pain, out of the world and it’s constant onslaught. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mites crawled around his ankles and he tried to ignore the eyes on the back of his neck.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He needed something concrete but instead he was thrown back in time with the delicacy of a toddler who just discovered sugar for the first time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In a flash of blue light he’d found himself in a tent under siege. He had a lot to think about but no time as a uniform and gun were thrust into his hand.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The next thing he remembered, outside of the crash of shells and the muggy heat of the land, was Dave.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dave was beautiful, an Adonis among men. His lips curled up in a way that promised more than a smile as his fingers displayed calluses, carved between soft skin just enough to promise a return to quiet civilian life when this was all over.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dave was the first man he met in the army, and from the first moment they laid eyes on each other they were inseparable.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Back in his time, the twenty-first century, Klaus had never loved beyond sex. His family didn’t count, their relationships with each other too complex to fit within the bounds of love and hate. But every other person he’d said he loved hadn’t been there for him beyond their sexual appetite. Even when Klaus wasn’t getting paid he was a prostitute, moving from house to house until people got tired of his body.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But Dave was different. He looked at Klaus like he hung the moon, and, around him, Klaus almost believed that he could. That his arms were long enough to fix the stars just right to light up Dave’s eyes. The first time they kissed was on patrol, just the two of them. It had been quick, fleeting, nestled into the creaking branches of a forest at night. Klaus had loved it more than anything he’d felt before.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At night Klaus would spin wild stories about a family of superheroes. They battled the Eiffel Tower, travelled to the moon, fought over their robot mom’s chocolate cake. All the boys in the unit would laugh at his stories, the wild things Klaus managed to think up, but they all listened each night without fail. Sometimes the nurses and medics would show up too, dazzled by the stories of a pale man and his tales. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And Dave would be right there, nestled to his side under the auspices of the late hour. Asking all the questions in the world.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Somehow, in the middle of a war, Klaus finally found the closest thing to peace he’d ever felt.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But the visions, the dead people with rotten limbs and sunken heads still plagued him. It wasn’t hard to get drugs in the war, hell it was easier than at home, but there was nothing he could do to stop the haunting faces. They were everywhere, no matter how many illicit substances thrummed through his veins.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he was starting to believe that the people he saw were real. In fact, he was fairly certain he had powers. Klaus Hargreeves, useless Number Four, could see the dead.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It had begun when his division, the 173d Airborne, met up with the 6th Infantry. The sixth were all new, freshly shipped from the States, and the higher-ups wanted a couple more experienced troops to go with them on their first mission: find and extract the Viet Cong holed up in a local village.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>No one had wanted to go, because no one really liked the new recruits, Klaus excluded, but Frank and Albet drew the short straws. They’d have to go with the newer men the next morning at the crack of dawn.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Frank came stumbling back three days later. Alone.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dave managed to coax the story out of him. They’d been ambushed and little Albet, who wanted to be an English teacher, had been shot. Frank hadn’t been able to do anything when the new kids wanted revenge. Their commander had encouraged it. Told them that, if something happened, it was the just course of action.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We razed the village to the fucking ground,” Frank mumbled into Dave’s shoulder, tears he tried to hide spilling onto his cheek. “And there was this girl, and she was sobbing, and I tried to help her, and then there was nothing I could do. She’s gone, and it’s all my fault. I should have stopped them.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Over the next week Frank joined Klaus every chance he got. They’d smoke together, shoot up together, drink together. But Frank never smiled. Not once. Klaus should have known something was wrong then.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>On Monday night, right before the sun bit the morning trees, the whole squad was awoken by a ringing gunshot. They stumbled outside to find Frank leaning against a tree, his handgun by his side and a weeping wound in his forehead.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The next day Frank showed up again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So did it make you feel any better?” Klaus asked. “Killing yourself?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Frank shook his head. “It didn’t help. Not at all.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Klaus patted him on the shoulder, awkwardly sat next to him in the dirt.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dave found them a few minutes later.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What’re you doing?” He asked, sitting right where Frank was.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You should move,” Klaus said, “move to the other side.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Frank’s sitting there.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dave got up, moved to Klaus’s other side. “Is that better?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.” There was a moment then, Klaus sitting halfway between the living and the dead. “I’m not crazy Dave, I promise. But you know how I see things.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know, you see dead people.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Klaus laughed, morbid but who really cared. “In a few decades that’ll be a very on the nose reference.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sure it will,” Dave said, leaning onto Klaus’s shoulder. “If you want to know if he’s real or not, let me ask Frank a question only he’d know the answer too.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sure, why not.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay.” Dave looked over Klaus’s shoulders. “Frank, what did you name your first donkey, the one your grandad gave you to raise?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh god, don’t make me say it,” Frank mumbled. He continued when he saw both Klaus and Dave waiting expectantly for his answer. “Fine, I named it Billy Hollibray.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Apparently he named it Billy Hollibray.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dave’s face paled. “That’s right. Holy shit Klaus, that’s actually right.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Klaus didn’t know what to say. The suspicion had been creeping on him for months, but this wasn’t how he was expecting it to be confirmed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Klaus Hargreeves could definitely see the dead. He was extraordinary, just like his siblings.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This chapter’s got quite a bit in it. I hope you like it!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. A Little Too Late for This</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Dave was beautiful, even in death. His jaw was still sharp, his fading touch still electric, his lips still soft. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus screamed for a medic but he knew it was too late. Dave’s blood was on his hands, underneath his fingernails, already drying into the hairs on his fingers.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He searched frantically for Dave’s ghost. Normally they appeared so quickly, hovering over their bodies and crying out for help. Klaus could be there for Dave, shepherding him so he wasn’t scared and alone. But Dave wasn’t appearing. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dave was dead and Klaus couldn’t find him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He screamed at the air, tears pouring down his cheeks. Burning them like acid, hot and painful. Nowhere to go so the tears pooled on his chin and on his collarbone. Everything was so much heavier in his grief.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Hands grabbed his arms, dragged him away. They were leaving Dave out there, alone in the mud and the dirt. Klaus kicked, lashed against the force pulling him back. He needed to be there with Dave, Dave who had always been so afraid of being alone.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Get yourself together,” Junior hissed, his dirty nails leaving cuts on Klaus’s pale skin. “I know he meant a lot to you but we have to move.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“No! I need to be with him! Let me be with him!”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Junior only responded by yanking Klaus along.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Please, I’m begging you, just leave me here,” Klaus pleaded.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry. This is for your own good.” Junior’s tan skin shone through Klaus’s tears. Blood shown on his fingers, the ones that dug through Klaus’s thin skin. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The ghosts were all around, murmuring and hissing in a searing choir. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus had been sober two months, off his meds for longer than he cared to count. Everything had been okay but without Dave to be his guide he was lost. Alone and surrounded by voices.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They began to whisper in the cold night air. They weren’t the ghosts but something beyond. Something haunting, cresting, crashing. Beyond human.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In those moments it all made sense. The voices, the well inside him, the gunshots and the cracking shells. He understood the symphony they were playing.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus thrashed in Junior’s grip and screamed. “You did this! You killed Dave.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What? Why would I do that? And please, I’m begging you, keep it down until we get back to camp. You don’t want to end up like Dave.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh my god,” Klaus mumbled, “you killed him. You’re working with my dad, I knew it.” He kicked again, spraying mud into the air. “All of you are against me. All of you. The only person I could trust was Dave and he’s dead. You killed him, you monster.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Junior threw Klaus in the field hospital still kicking and screaming. He needed to get back to Dave, was terrified of what the doctors and nurses would do to him. They knew all of his secrets and they knew how to cause him pain. He had to escape.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He lay on his cot, biding his time. There wasn’t anything wrong with him so the medical team was caring for other patients. They couldn’t make their observations of Klaus too obvious or else he’d catch on. Unfortunately for them he was already onto their schemes. The deadly game they were playing.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The man on the cot next to him shuddered and took a gasping breath of air. A moment later his ghost floated into the air above his chest. Klaus turned away and pretended he couldn’t see him. How was it fair that Klaus could see that ghost right away but Dave was gone?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>No matter. The sun began to set and a nurse brought a tray of food to everyone. Some kind of gray meat, a vegetable, a starch. Klaus cut it apart, scattered the pieces to make it look like he had eaten, and didn’t dare touch a bite to his tongue. It would be so easy to slip something into Klaus’s food. But he wasn’t going to let himself be poisoned that easily.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>That night, as he lay in bed, a terrible thought occurred to him. Maybe he hadn’t been able to find Dave’s ghost because Dave wasn’t dead when Junior dragged him away. Maybe Klaus had left the only person he ever truly loved to die alone in the jungle.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He had to find out. It couldn’t be true.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus slipped away when the night bugs filled the air with their chatter and the quiet steps of the late guard were few and far between. With feet quiet as the fog Klaus made his way to his old tent. The one he’d shared with Dave. With the other men. He used to call them friends but now he wasn’t sure if he could. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Everyone was sleeping, curled up on their cots. Quiet as the hour before sunrise, when the only people out are the staggering drunks and the early morning joggers.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He pulled the briefcase out from under his cot. If he couldn’t find Dave at least he could escape the people who had taken him away. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus stumbled along the rough path where Junior had dragged him. He’d been so consumed by grief that he hadn’t paid much attention to their route. While walking back he kept having to double back, retrace his steps, find the knocked-down plants when it seemed there were none left.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Finally he made it, back where he’d left Dave. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The sun was much brighter now, burning and bubbling and hot as the sulfurous pits of hell. Everything seemed jagged.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dave was gone.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Frank, where is he?” Klaus asked, sinking to his knees. Frank, shaking and fragile as ever, knelt beside him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“They took him away when they were collecting the bodies Klaus. The American bodies,” Frank whispered. His voice was soothing but the words dug deep as daggers.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus was afraid to look across the field, to see the corpses of the other soldiers. Maybe they were gone, maybe they were still there. Klaus had never been courageous enough to check, always terrified of meeting any men he killed.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Today wasn’t the day to be brave.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Why would they take him away Frank?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s what they always do. You know that.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I know, I know.” Klaus wiped his eyes and clutched the dogtags in his hand. “But did you see him, before he was taken away?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I did.” Frank wrapped his arms around Klaus, the wound on his forehead still weeping. “He’s dead Klaus. He’s gone and I don’t know where he is.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s gone,” Klaus repeated. His voice was just a whisper, fragile as a butterfly’s wings. He slipped his hands into the cold dirt, the memory of blood soaking his fingernails still fresh in his mind. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He opened the suitcase. “I can’t say here any longer,” he told Frank as blue light began to encircle him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I know,” Frank said. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And Klaus was gone.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I’m just gonna leave this chapter here. For some reason it took me a really long time to write compared to the others and I honestly have no explanation for why that’s the case.</p>
<p>Anyway, I really appreciate all your comments and kudos. I love reading your comments, even if I’m terrible about responding (it’s nerve racking!)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. My Mind’s Gone Away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Klaus was back on the bus. It had been a lifetime and a moment since he had been here. The fluorescent lights burned his eyes, the ground felt too slick beneath his feet. Frank was gone, all the ghosts he had grown used to in Vietnam out somewhere in the unknown ether.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Instead he was surrounded by new faces, ones he was used to but had almost forgotten. Ghosts with scars and bruises and pus and blood and mucus. Gnarled faces and crushed bones, tear-stained faces and picked-apart eyes. Moaning faceless creatures, crying silent monsters. He hadn’t been here, not sober, in so long that he had to greet these old friends like it was the first time they met.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He stumbled off the bus, the briefcase still in hand. It felt wrong, too heavy and painful, stabbing into his palm and blinding his eyes. Klaus hurled it to the ground, stomped his boot against it until it sparked and burned away in a blaze of fire.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Now that Klaus was back in the present he was safer. There were so many more places to hide here. And whoever was working for his father wouldn’t know how to find him, wouldn’t be able to track him across the decades. And they must all be so directionless now that dad was dead and buried. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The last place they would look for him would be the Academy. They’d never suspect him of running right into their den. And Klaus’s siblings were there, they’d protect him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Leaves crunched beneath his feet as he stumbled down the sidewalk. He was only half sure how to get back from the bus station, but he’d spent enough time wandering the streets to at least have a vague concept of the area. And maybe his indirect route would throw off any pursuers that might still be trailing him. Confuse them so they couldn’t find him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Something was nagging at Klaus and then he realized what it was. Ben was gone. He began to panic, his chest heaving as he looked around for his brother. He should be back, he should sense Klaus’s presence.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>No, Klaus told himself, he needed to calm down. Ben would be there when he was able to. He just needed to be calm.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Being back in his own hometown reminded Klaus why he’d picked up the drugs in the first place. Every way he went it was loud, cramped, muggy. The world crowded his mind and body and crushed his chest with every turn. The voices and the ghosts were suffocating and constant. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And he was alone. Dave wasn’t there to help him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Eventually Klaus made it to the back door of the house, the one that opened into the kitchen. His hand hovered above it. He didn’t know whether to knock or let himself in. So much time had passed since he’d been here, even longer since he considered it home.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He had survived a war, he had lost the man he loved most in the world, he could enter the house he grew up in. The wood was cold to the touch, the passcode to get in still burned into his memory.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Inside the kitchen was dark. The family had always left a light on for Five, even years after he disappeared. But they couldn’t spare that courtesy to Klaus, even for a day. He was too much of a failure. Too much of a disappointment. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Cautiously Klaus made his way upstairs. Bits of broken glass littered the ground and the nicked corners of walls whispered that something violent had happened. But Klaus already knew that.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The stairs creaked beneath his feet and the ghosts of the house whispered with glee that he could finally see them. It had been so long since he’d looked them in the eye and they desperately needed the recognition.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He shooed them away when he finally heard the voices of his siblings. They were gathered in the living room, a place where very little living had ever happened outside of what Klaus did with the well-stocked bar. In hushed voices his brothers and sisters were having a discussion.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Klaus?” Diego asked, looking up at where his brother had pushed open the door. Klaus didn’t quite know how to respond so he only waved.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you doing here?” Luther asked, his brow furrowed and his arms crossed. He stood up to prove his entire height, though Klaus was already well aware of his brother’s bulk. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Can I not check in with my beloved family?” He had only been back a few hours and he was already slipping back into his old role. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“We thought you had gone back,” Allison waved her hands, pausing for a moment, “back to wherever it is you live.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I hadn’t, thank you very much,” Klaus said.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t mind them, we were all worried about you.” Ah Vanya, always the mediator.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. You look like shit.” And Five, always honest.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Diego walked over to Klaus and put his hand on his shoulder. He kept his voice low, the way he always did when he was trying to let his scolding of Klaus stay private. “I’m sorry. But we’re having a family meeting right now. It’s really important. How about I come up and talk to you afterwards? I was really worried about you when I couldn’t find you yesterday, just like Vanya said.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“A family meeting? Am I not a member of the family?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You know what I mean. We’re having an Academy meeting.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I can be a member of the Academy too now. I have powers.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Diego looked concerned, but then looked over at his shoulder. Something back there, back with the rest of them, was more important than Klaus. “We can talk about this later. I promise this meeting won’t be long and then I’ll be right there.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And the doors were closed on Klaus’s face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus was used to being rejected by his family. It was as normal was breathing or blinking. But somehow this time felt different. This time Klaus was special like the rest of them, this time Klaus was sober and aware of his surroundings and fully capable.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He knew he should have waited to talk to his brother. Diego would be worried when he found his brother gone but Klaus couldn’t muster up enough inside him to care. Diego could suffer all he wanted. He sure as hell had caused Klaus pain.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The ghosts surrounded him but he shoved them off. He’d never felt this angry before, this horrible cocktail of fear and pain and seething, teaming rage. The doors of the Academy flew off their hinges as he threw his arms forward.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dave’s dog tags were hot around his neck as he stormed down the street. People dodged out of his way, their eyes wide and their chests heaving. Klaus didn’t care. They may as well have been ghosts. As he walked they began to appear as ghosts, the living and the dead the same blur around him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>At some point his feet lifted off the ground. It had happened once before, when he and Dave found a moment alone in the woods, but Dave had just laughed and pulled him back down. Grounded him, kissed him until all he could do was laugh and stay as close as possible.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dave. Beautiful, loving, smart Dave. The only person who had ever seen every part of him and still found him worthwhile, who had seen Klaus high and sick and wounded and ragged.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And there he was. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Dave?” Klaus asked, reaching out towards the blue figure in front of him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s me Klaus, it’s me,” Dave whispered, holding Klaus’s hand in his. Tears were in the corners of his eyes as Dave shook. He laughed a little whenever the sound bubbled out of him. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there for you in Vietnam. When I woke up you were gone. I spent so much time trying to find you, but I couldn’t be here until now.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s okay, I understand. It was my fault I didn’t stay.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It doesn’t matter who’s fault it was,” Dave said, almost corporeal as he kissed Klaus on the cheek, the forehead, the lips. “I’m here now. We’re finally here together.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And then Diego walked through Dave and Dave disappeared. Gone again, just like he’d never existed in the first place.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“There you are Klaus. What the hell is happening?” His brother asked, standing in that sacred spot where Dave had been only a moment before. Dave, who Klaus couldn’t see anymore. Dave, beautiful Dave who Klaus couldn’t bear to lose again.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Get away from me!” Klaus cried, shoving his brother in the chest. But Diego didn’t move, kept standing there in the spot that should have been Dave’s. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His family had taken so much from Klaus. They had taken his childhood, his identity, the hope of understanding himself. But taking Dave away was too much.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Diego kept standing there.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And then all hell broke loose.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I had to add another chapter to this story because I realized my original outline didn’t actually resolve the final issue of this fic, and not resolving stuff isn’t the move.</p>
<p>I hope you like this chapter! I had a lot of fun writing it.</p>
<p>Also, I’m not sure if I said this before, but all my chapter titles are lifted from the National, mostly their album Alligator (because I have the music taste of a middle aged dad, oops). It’s honestly great, especially their song Karen which is an unfortunately named bop</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. I’ll End Up Winning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Energy raged through Klaus’s body. He no longer knew where it began and he ended. He and it were just one infinite portal, log and connected and powerful. So, so powerful. Ghosts poured into the land of the livings, their warped bodies ripping into the people around them. Screams filled the air but Klaus was so used to them already they barely registered. Just another part of his life to file away and come back to later. After he was done.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The earth shook several feet below Klaus as ghosts kept pouring out, ripping the ground away with them. Buildings were torn apart with their terrified occupants still inside. Sirens cried but only a second each, too quickly drowned out by the chaos unfolding around them.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And every time someone died a new spirit joined the army. Klaus could feel them everywhere, on every block and every ocean. Ripping down the capital of every country. He was all of the ghosts and he was none of them. Klaus was eternal and so painfully mortal.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Diego screamed to get his brother’s attention but Klaus waved him away. He kept coming so Klaus opened his palm, the one that said hello with such glee, and let out a stream of spirits. After that Diego was quiet and Klaus could continue with the task at hand. Whatever that was, whatever goal he was working towards.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Please Klaus,” Vanya begged, inching towards him, “please calm down. We can talk about this. I’ll try to understand.” Klaus didn’t want to hear her excuses. She’d always been the kindest but she wouldn’t understand. If they wanted to listen to him they could have tried years ago, not now that they finally realized he was just like them. He didn’t need to be the same to be loved. Dave had taught him that.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus sent a wave of ghosts towards his sister, ripping the road out in front of her. Vanya barely dodged the debris flying inches above her head.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She scrambled over an upturned fire hydrant and turned towards Klaus. “Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything, just talk to me.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t want to talk to you,” Klaus said. His voice was his own, yet it was also the voice of countless ghosts, the voice of their pain and their anger. Deep and light and present.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t want to do this,” she said. “Don’t make me do this Klaus.” He sent another flock of ghosts towards her and she let out a wave of energy, hurtling through the air in a burst of blue light. A Union battalion sprung up in front of Klaus, protecting him from the light and charging towards Vanya.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Stirred to action his other siblings raced towards him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I heard a rumor,” Allison whispered, but she couldn’t finish her sentence before a middle aged cancer patient ripped her head backwards.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Five tried to shoot him but an absentminded nuclear physicist with sores across his body absorbed the bullet and punched Five in the gut. His lab assistants held him down while he kicked and stabbed and bled.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Luther was waved away without a second thought. Klaus didn’t even bother to see what happened to him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The energy was everything and then it was gone. Everything was gone. Klaus lay awake in a pile of rubble, surrounded by the faces of his dead family members. He tested his hands to see what would happen but all he got was a weak spark of blue. He lay his head back and closed his eyes. If he tried really hard he would wake up to someone saying his medication needed to be adjusted. Klaus had no idea what just happened but he knew it couldn’t have been real.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The sun was gone when he finally stumbled up. Every inch of his body was bruised and bloody, his clothes covered in dust and his breath shaky.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Everyone was quiet. Not just the living but the dead as well.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus looked around. There was no one. Not a single soul left. Somehow Klaus must have sent them away, sent them tumbling into the unknown. Or worse. He’d never gotten the chance to test his powers, who knew what he’d done with them.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He couldn’t walk but he could float. It was easier somehow, not having to feel the damage beneath his feet.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Vanya lay on the ground, the most peaceful of the siblings. All the rest were mangled and bloody, but his little sister looked like she could wake up at any moment were it not for the post mortem bloating. He shook her shoulders but she didn’t breathe. For a moment he hoped she might be okay, but then he realized that was a lost cause. Her skin was green and threatening to slip off her skeleton. He couldn’t bear to touch her any longer.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And how long had it been? In their father’s classes he’d always been drilled on the signs and symptoms of death and decay. Bloating set in three to five days after death yet it felt like only moments ago that he’d laid back to rest. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus had always wondered why his siblings got to read about the world and he was stuck learning about what came after. But now he realized why. His father had known this whole time. He’d known that Klaus was special and kept it away from him on purpose.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus would have to bury his siblings later, far away from their father. Somewhere quiet, though everything was quiet now. The burials and the mourning wouldn’t be repentance for what he’d done, but it was as close as he’d be able to get. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He shook his head, tried to scrape it from his mind. Tried to throw it away, throw away the horrible thing he’d done that he couldn’t even begin to process.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But there had to be other people alive. Something else alive at least. It had to be. Klaus tried to stay quiet to hear the chirp of a cricket or the scratch of a cockroach. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But there was nothing. Just Klaus’s breath and the sound of rubble settling.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The ghosts were gone and so were the people.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus was well and truly alone.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I was going to go into more detail on the process of decomposition but then I thought that might be a bad idea. I may be the only person fascinated enough by death to find that anything more than overly morbid</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. I’ll Never Do That Again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Klaus kicked the nearest piece of rubble until his shoe wore through and his toes left bloody prints on the stone. He’d already buried his siblings. They were gone and he needed to find the survivors, whoever and wherever they were. But it had been over a week and he hadn’t heard a single trace of life in the oppressive air. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus had already cried all the tears he had in him. The only thing left to do was bleed.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He sunk down against the bloody stone and pulled out one of the granola bars he’d found in a burned-out grocery store. There wasn’t much food left, just cans and processed stuff that reminded him of rehab. The only freshwater he could find was in bottles. Everything else had been tainted by the bodies.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It was only a matter of time before he starved or died of thirst or froze. He wasn’t Five, he couldn’t take care of himself that way.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe it was only fair that he should have to die like this. Klaus, who could never find quiet, should die alone as the last man on Earth.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But he caused this destruction. Why did he survive when everyone else died?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He shook his head and threw the crumbled wrapper onto the ground. It hadn’t been long enough alone that he needed to start philosophizing. He crushed his trash beneath the sole of his shoe. It didn’t matter anymore, the world had gone to shit anyway.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>At first he’d considered finding Five in this post-Apocalyptic landscape he now infested. But his brother wouldn’t be able to go to the same location as his corpse. At least that made sense, Klaus had never learned the rules of time travel.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And a part of Klaus needed to punish himself by removing his only hope of freedom. But he didn’t need to say that out loud.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Not that he had anyone to say it to.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He walked some more, leaving bloody footprints behind him. Eventually he made it to the edge of the city. Ahead the plain running fields of a withered farm stood and beckoned him. He could keep exploring and searching, eating scraps and praying for the day he finally found a survivor.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Instead he turned away from the farm. If he was going to die he wanted to do it next to his siblings. They’d never been close in life but at least in death they could be equals.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Glass covered the streets from the night he didn’t want to think about. It cut his toes through the worn patch on his shoe. Klaus closed his eyes to focus on the pain. He knew that was real. Maybe, when he opened his eyes, he would be walking down a cold autumnal street.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Yes, he could almost see it. The street lights reflected on the wet pavement. A young couple laughing and holding each other close against the swirling wind. A cat yowling into the night air, pigeons pecking at the gutter, the scamper and scurry of all the creatures of the city. Everything alive and dancing.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He opened his eyes to see dusty decay. He was still here, still the last survivor of the Apocalypse he created.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There were bodies littering the street as he walked. Klaus knew he should bury them but he didn’t have the strength in him, physical or mental. The death toll was just too high, the bodies too heavy.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He made it back to the little hill where he’d dragged his siblings. The burial had been precise, each of his siblings laid out amongst the people he thought would make them happiest. Vanya and Allison and Five together with Diego on one side and Luther on the other. He couldn’t bear the thought of his siblings having to keep up with Diego and Luther’s fights even after death. That was the bridge too far.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He knew it was superstitious to bury them that way but he couldn’t help it. Burying them so carefully wouldn’t bring them back and it wouldn’t bring them any more joy or any less pain. It was only for Klaus.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He’d put up little markers for each of his siblings, written their names in charcoal above their mangled and bloated bodies. It must have rained while he was gone because the names were smudged and running, barely legible.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The dirt was cold as he ran his fingers through it, icy and jarring. Tears poured down Klaus’s cheeks. He thought he’d run out of those.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He had to find some way to undo what was done. To make things normal again. To have his siblings ignore and berate and devalue him, and to live with the blissful pain that came with thinking he was ordinary.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>If he tried hard enough he was sure he could summon his siblings. He was still sober despite his best efforts to find anything numbing among the rubble, his powers should still work. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>With every ounce of focus he could muster he tried to feel the presence of his siblings. Five would be his best bet, the only one who’d done this before.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Yes, he’d focus on his little brother’s energy. He tried to think of everything he and his brother shared. The way his brother made him feel. Scared and angry and small.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The effort was draining but Klaus still felt his feet lift off the ground. He was only supported by the pressure and power in his chest, carrying him through the air and sending pain racing through his bones.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>This had to work. It had to.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Klaus?” A familiar voice asked. Klaus peeked down to see his little brother standing there, glowing blue and inspecting his hands.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Five!” Klaus called, the words sapping his energy. He didn’t know how long he could stay like this. “I need you to go back to the family meeting and make sure Diego doesn’t close the door on my face.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“First, Klaus, you have a lot of explaining to do.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Later,” Klaus mumbled. He was shaking from the exertion of holding his brother. “Please try and go back.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Five looked ready to say something else but then decided against it. His hands glowed the same blue as the light encircling him and then he vanished.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus fell to the ground. He didn’t have the energy to turn over. All he could do was watch the stars rush past, the dirt of his siblings’ graves soaking his back.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Now he just had to wait for his brother to stop him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The Umbrella Academy always saved the day.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And this story’s done! </p>
<p>So this sort of turned into a bummer. I was thinking of writing a sequel, but at the same time I like the ambiguity. Did Klaus really summon Five? Did he just hallucinate him? The answer’s up to you</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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